Student engagement and academic achievement are now well documented for their positives
long-term outcomes. Yet, several factors can alter students’ investment and success in school.
Past studies have indeed shown that psychosocial maladjustment is an important risk factor for
later disengagement. However, less is known about the risk of disengagement when
externalizing, internalizing, and social difficulties tend to co-occur and accumulate in some
students. Also, there is actually no theoretical framework explaining the association between
maladjustment characteristics and motivational process crucial to ensure school success. A
few models suggest that self-perceptions are important mechanisms leading to student
engagement. These self-perceptions, as student engagement, are indeed associated with
maladjustment characteristics. The goal of this thesis is thus to deepen our understanding of
psychosocial maladjustment factors leading to student disengagement when approaching
adolescence, which is a developmental period where the risk for disengagement increases.
Therefore, a first article (Chapter II) allowed identifying psychosocial maladjustment
profiles among 5th and 6th grade boys and girls. These profiles were then linked with students’
later behavioral engagement and academic achievement. Results first showed that the
identified maladjustment profiles were distinct between boys and girls. Findings also highlight
that students belonging to maladjusted profile tend to have lower behavioral engagement and
academic achievement, but distinctly between profiles and between sexes.
Next, a second article (Chapter III) relied on Self-System Model of Motivational
Development (Connell & Wellborn, 1991) in order to position self-perceptions of competence,
autonomy, and relatedness as mediating mechanisms linking psychosocial profiles to
behavioral, emotional, and cognitive engagement. Results show the crucial role of sense of
relatedness associated with the lower emotional engagement of students in maladjusted
profiles. Furthermore, the risk of having a lower engagement was especially salient for girls as
a result of negative self-perceptions.
In sum, findings from this thesis suggest that students’ psychosocial maladjustment is
well captured by establishing profiles distinctly between sexes for students approaching
adolescence. On the one hand, this thesis reemphasizes that studying sexual differences is
especially relevant to understand maladjusted student’s disengagement. On the other hand, as
belonging to a maladjusted profile impacted students’ self-perception and, in turn, classroom
engagement, results support the inclusion of psychosocial maladjustment in theoretical
frameworks explaining motivation, engagement, and academic success.